Yahoo Data Breach way back 2014, affects 500 million accounts

Yahoo, a leading search engine, and email provider disclosed last Thursday, September 22, that 500 million of its email accounts were compromised way back in 2014. It took two years, for Yahoo to admit to the public that a data breach occurred that possibly leaked information about users.

After discovering the said incident, Yahoo users advised to changed their passwords and security questions to secure their accounts.

The data breach may include the names, emails, date of birth, telephone numbers and for some, including safety issues and answers.

According to Michael Borohovski, CEO of Tinfoil Security, the motives of the hackers are still not clear and suggested that Yahoo may have steps that could better protect their users.

Immediately Change Password: Regardless if your account was compromised or not, changing your password together with your security questions and answers will be your very first step. In changing your password, make sure not to reuse any previous ones to secure your account better.

Different Passwords for several accounts: Passwords might sometimes be hard to remember but as much as possible, avoid using the same password for several accounts. Hackers could easily enter your other accounts once one of the passwords were acquired and you are then using it for several accounts.

Avoid common passwords: Common passwords could make it very easy for hackers. Avoid using your name, birth date or any common words that could just let hackers instantly get into your accounts. As much possible, mix your passwords; use uppercase, lowercase, numbers, letters and special characters.

Two-way authentication: Yahoo is recommending the said feature to secure your accounts better. This feature will send a one-time code that would allow you to log in to your account securely. Once activated, you will need to enter the code every time you need to access your account.

The data breach that happened to Yahoo is something that users must not ignore. The incident might cause information leak over the internet but as of the moment, no one could stop it and the only thing users can do is to make sure that their accounts are secured.

Lastly, make sure not to store sensitive information over the Internet so that in case that a hacker got into any of your accounts, no relevant information can be obtained.